Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Lab
The Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Laboratory, directed by Jennifer Byrnes, is a recently established (2019) research space dedicated to the analysis of modern and historic human remains. Forensic anthropology as a field of study is the application of methods and theory in biological anthropology to questions related to the medicolegal significance of human remains (see NIST Anthropology Subcommittee and American Board of Forensic Anthropology). Members of the lab assist in consult cases for the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner (CCOCME) under the supervision of the lab director. Assistance includes lab analyses and field recoveries. New research projects include the investigation of the reliability and validity of positive identifications generated from medical imaging, examining issues of public health and structural violence utilizing forensic anthropology case demographics, and paleopathology/trauma analyses from data collected on the Erie County Poorhouse Cemetery (1851-1913). Undergraduate and graduate students interested in participating in any of these research or service endeavors should contact Dr. Byrnes directly to discuss how they can participate as a lab member.
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Current Students Affiliated with the Lab
Fourth Year Ph.D. Student; Doctoral Candidate
Pronouns: They/She
Position: Laboratory Manager, Graduate Student Researcher
Taylor is a fourth year doctoral student with a primary focus in forensic anthropology. They have two Master of Science degrees from the University College London in Bioarchaeological and Forensic Anthropology and Musculoskeletal Science. While completing these degrees, their research focused on taphonomic processes affecting sharp force trauma and subchondral bone regeneration in injured knee joints, respectively. Taylor's Ph.D. research focuses on gender inclusivity in forensics. Ultimately, this research will analyze the structural violence, systemic marginalization, and post-death treatment of transgender and gender variant individuals in forensics. Taylor also plans to analyze the effects of hormone therapy on traditional skeletal sex indicators used in forensic anthropology, and to catalyze research that enhances post-mortem care of transgender and gender variant decedents. Additionally, Taylor is working on a project with the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner radiograph identification database and she is analyzing rib trauma in individuals interred at the Erie County Poorhouse.
Fourth Year Ph.D. Student; Doctoral Candidate
Pronouns: She/Her
Position: Graduate Student Researcher, Volunteer and Mentor
Katherine (Katie's) background is in bioarchaeology and she is primarily interested in how individuals and societies have experienced health and disease in the past. She is currently working as a field osteologist for two active medieval bioarchaeology research sites located in Poland, where her recent research has focused on taking an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of skeletal biomarkers of stress in order to form a more comprehensive understanding of frailty in medieval Prussia. Currently, her PhD research involves exploring biocultural theories of ageing as they relate to health across the lifespan in order to better understand the lived experiences of elderly adults in both bioarchaeological and forensic contexts.
Second Year M.A. Student
Pronouns: She/They
Position: Graduate Student Researcher and Volunteer
SaMoura is a graduate student pursuing an M.A. in forensic anthropology. Prior to attending UNLV, they completed two bachelor's degrees, one in Anthropology and the other in English Writing. During their undergraduate studies, they conducted research on human variation and contributed to a project investigating the terminology used to describe human variation in forensic anthropology. For their master's research, they aim to apply Black feminist theory to the field of forensic anthropology and the use of poetry as a tool of analysis. Her research focuses on identifying possible gender and racial biases in media coverage of the deceased, and how other intersecting identities may affect media coverage in Clark County, Nevada.
Third Year Ph.D. Student
Pronouns: He/His
Position: Graduate Student Researcher and Volunteer
Liam is a third year PhD student studying biological anthropology with a background in forensic anthropology and geospatial analysis. Prior to attending UNLV, Liam researched 3D computational age-at-death techniques on a modern Portuguese skeletal population. He has more recently conducted research on the spatiotemporal distribution of missing persons cases from Louisiana to aid investigative agencies and recommend spatially informed locations of where to strategically host community centered missing and unidentified persons events. Liam is funded as a Top Tier Doctoral Graduate Research Assistant and in collaboration with the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner intends to further explore the intersections between unidentified and missing persons, public health, advocacy, geospatial technology, and community engagement with his dissertation project titled "Named and Unnamed: A Social Autopsy of Nevada's Missing and Unidentified".
Third Year Ph.D. Student
Pronouns: She/Her
Position: Graduate Student Researcher and Volunteer
Dayanira has a Master of Science degree in Forensic Studies with a concentration on Human Identity & Trauma analysis from Florida Gulf Coast University. Prior to beginning her studies as a doctoral student at UNLV, her training, education, and experience were focused on fragmentary human osteology and forensic anthropology. Her previous research includes the effects of hydrochloric acid on human remains while documenting the pattern of dissolution observed, best practices in curation of human skeletal remains, skeletal manifestations of developmental defects (Goldenhar – Gorlin Syndrome), and postmortem alligator scavenging on human remains. Presently, she hopes to evaluate evidence of disability and impairment on the skeletal remains of the ancient Maya of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico.
First Year Ph.D. Student
Pronouns: She/Her
Position: Graduate Student Researcher
Kathleen Stansbury is a graduate student at the University of Nevada Las Vegas studying biopower, necropolitics and institutional violence. Her current research centers on violence experienced through interaction with Western biomedical systems, integrating critical medical anthropology and bioarchaeology. Prior to attending UNLV, she focused on state-specific histories of forced sterilization. Her MA project used musculoskeletal markers to consider gendered patterns of labor in systems of violent captivity. She focuses on the use of queer, feminist, and disability theory in biological anthropology.
Fourth Year Ph.D. Student; Doctoral Candidate
Pronouns: She/Her
Position: Graduate Student Researcher, Volunteer and Mentor
Katharine has a background in both biological and forensic anthropology. She has worked extensively with prehistoric human skeletal remains. Katharine has also conducted taphonomic research exploring the variations that occur to remains when subject to winter weather conditions. Currently, her Ph.D. project focuses on health disparities and violence directed toward women and children residing at county poor houses during the 19th and early 20th centuries. She intends to analyze the skeletal remains belonging to the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (MCPFC), as well as data from the Erie County Poorhouse (ECPH). Her hope is that this research may provide a better understanding of how women and children’s bodies are regulated by social and societal organizations/institutions.
Current Postdoctoral Scholars Affiliated with the Lab
Position: Postdoctoral Scholar
Pronouns: She/Her
Dr. Claira Ralston is a biological anthropologist who specializes in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology. She received her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College (2011); M.S. in Forensic Anthropology from Boston University School of Medicine (2016); and received her PhD. in Anthropology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2023. Her research broadly addresses issues of inequity, identity, health and disease, marginalization, structural violence, settler colonialism and creeping genocide in the North American Southwest using osteological and mortuary data. In 2022, she co-authored a volume in the Routledge Bodies and Lives series, titled Gender Violence in the American Southwest (AD 1100-1300): Mothers Sisters, Wives, Slaves, which presents a nuanced case study of gender violence through a biocultural and intersectional lens. Her dissertation research focused on how social institutions shaped gendered experiences of disease and trauma among the Ancestral occupants of Turkey Creek Pueblo (AZ W:9:123/AZ W:10:78) (n=266), the earliest aggregated pueblo in the Point of Pines area of the Mogollon region (AD 1225-1286). Since 2016, she has also served as the site supervisor for the Historic Belen Bioarchaeology Project, a National Science Foundation funded community-engaged project examining the physiological consequences of Spanish colonial programs of marginalization, domination, and assimilation within a community of freed Indigenous indentured servants and slaves known as Genízaros.
Laboratory Alumni
Project Title: Blood on the Brain: A Preliminary Investigation of Endocranial Reactions in the Erie County Poorhouse Cemetery
Project Title: Reliability and Validity of Radiographic Comparisons for Positive Identification
RAMP Project: The Intersection of Systemic, Interpersonal, and Postmortem Violence: A Global Analysis of Transgender Decedents
Assisted with Grant: Reliability and Validity of Radiographic Comparisons for Positive Identification.
Project: Preliminary Analysis of Periosteal Reaction of the Tibia in the Erie County Poorhouse Cemetery (1851-1913)
Comparative Trauma Analysis between Erie County Poorhouse and Colorado State Insane Asylum
RAMP Project: A Social Autopsy of Maternal and Infant Mortality Rates from the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (MCPFC)
Project: Disability and Impairment of the Hand: Trauma Analysis of the Erie County Poorhouse Cemetery
Project Title: Reliability and Validity of Radiographic Comparisons for Positive Identification
Project Title: Reliability and Validity of Radiographic Comparisons for Positive Identification
Ongoing Research Projects
The FAB Lab (PI Byrnes) received a National Institute of Justice grant to investigate the reliability and validity of positive identifications generated from medical imaging, which includes a subaward with the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State (FACTS) (Co-PI Gocha). The award is over a two year period (2022-2023) and will fund multiple students within the UNLV FAB Lab and FACTS. The primary goals of this project are to 1) assess the validity of radiographic comparisons on anatomical locations typically found in antemortem radiographs (e.g., knee, shoulder); 2) assess the utility of quantifying positive identification based on anatomical locations typically found in antemortem radiographs; 3) develop standards and minimum number of concordant features for generating positive identification through anatomical areas typically found in antemortem records; and 4) assess the relationship between education and experience level in regards to reliability of making radiographic comparisons.
This project is a compilation of multiple studies investigating the use of the Structural Vulnerability Profile (SVP) in forensic anthropology casework. Our studies focus on multiple demographics subject to structural vulnerability, including transgender and gender non-conforming people, the elderly, those with embodied stress and poor health, and racial groups subject to minoritization.
The Erie County Poorhouse (ECPH) cemetery was excavated in 2009 and again in 2012 at the University at Buffalo. The Buffalo Plains ECPH used the cemetery between the years 1851 and 1913, primarily for individuals who died at the institute and were not claimed by family/friends for burial elsewhere. Ongoing research from the archived skeletal analysis documentation includes projects with a focus on paleopathology and traumatic injuries. Students have used these data to present at the Paleopathology Association as well as the American Association of Biological Anthropologists annual conference.
Our Lab In the News
UNLV Media Coverage of Our Lab
Article Spotlight
- A child left behind: Malnutrition and chronic illness of a child from the Erie County Poorhouse Cemetery
- Multi-agent scavenging patterns in Hawai‘i: A forensic archaeological and skeletal case study
- The Bioarchaeology of Structural Violence
- Case Studies in Forensic Anthropology
- Evaluating Evidence in Biological Anthropology
- Speaking of Sex: Critical Reflections for Forensic Anthropologists